A New Generation of Lawbreakers
A year ago, in April of 2017, both author_by_night and torrent56 asked for my thoughts on the Harry Potter and the Cursed Child play. I didn't respond, partly because having only read the play and not seen it performed I didn't feel like my thoughts would be of interest, partly because I was busy with other things right then, but mostly because it had been so long since I'd read the play (July 2016) that I had forgotten most of it.
I still haven't seen it (October 10th, can't wait!!!) but I have just re-read it for the first time since 2016, so I will document my reactions.
Nineteen Years Later
I was a bit surprised, even dismayed, when I realized that I could barely remember the plot of the play I'd read just nine months earlier. I did enjoy the play, especially when we (the group of friends I had gathered for the release) did a table read. I remembered that we had laughed and laughed, so it must have had some very funny parts, and I remembered that some of you guys are surprisingly talented actors. I also remembered thinking that I couldn't even begin to imagine how it would be staged, and I still can't. Some of the effects (for instance, when Harry was gradually turning from Voldemort's body to his own near the end) seem literally impossible to carry off. I can't wait to see how they do it!
But now I have, for the first time, read Cursed Child right after reading the seven books of the Harry Potter series straight through, as if it was the eighth book. I suspect I will always read them that way from now on. Which means, I suppose, that I have accepted the "eighth book" as canon.
Or have I? I do have some reluctance to say that, despite the fact that Jo Rowling oversaw the script. The style of dialogue and humor is different enough that it doesn't FEEL like J.K. Rowling to me, and it doesn't feel exactly like the proper wizarding world either (though this may change when I've seen the play in person). On the other hand, it seems I've accepted the character portrayals as real. I certainly feel quite confident that Hermione really is the Minister for Magic, that Harry is the head of Magical Law Enforcement, that Albus is in Slytherin, Astoria is dead, and Scorpius is exactly the dear, sweet w00bie that he is in the play.
On the other other hand, when I re-read canon I don't really believe that the Trolley Witch is over 200 years old and can turn her hands into talons. That part just didn't take with me.
The World Has Gone Crazy, Have You Noticed?
The nature of the Trolley Witch isn't very important (to me) but there are some other things about the play besides style that bother me and make it hard for me to consider it canon. I'll list them from least important to most important:
Nor do these problems stop me from greatly enjoying the play. It's funny. It's sweet. It's exciting. And the characters are delightful. Scorpius is my favorite, of course, but CC!Ron and CC!Hermione are like all my R/Hr dreams come true.
Ron and Hermione Have Gone Completely Skewwiff
It's ironic that Rowling's interview with Emma Watson wherein she expressed second thoughts about Ron and Hermione being happy together had made me, well, "worried" is too strong a term, let's say curious to slightly concerned about how the Granger-Weasley marriage might be portrayed in the Cursed Child play. As it turns out, I can't imagine being more delighted with it. Not only do they still have their old "zing" but their relationship was a major subject that the play examined, and we got to see them yearning for each other in two different alternate histories, we got to see young Albus masquerading as Ron in a lovey-dovey scene with Hermione, which was HILARIOUS, and we got to see quite a bit of them in the main timeline as well.
One of the strongest memories from the play which I definitely didn't forget was that R/Hr during the alternate history where Voldemort defeated Harry was even better than the R/Hr in regular-timeline canon. Reader, I swooned. They were hotter than a hot hot thing. Their adulterous mutual longing while Ron was married to Padma in the first alternate timeline was pretty damn hot too.
But, as much as I might be tempted to let Voldemort stay in charge if Ron and Hermione can be secretly in love with each other in an underground resistance bunker and Snape be still alive and fighting, the "real life" timeline is everything I wanted for my favorite pairing. Hermione is Minister for Magic at forty! Ron is running the joke shop and taking care of the kids! (Take that, all you "Ron will turn Hermione into a housewife churning out babies" sillies.) Ron is funny and he still makes Hermione "melt." Hermione has taken up candy-eating, but she won't let Ron eat fish fingers. They were very young and Ron was drunk at their wedding, so he wants to do it over again. They're adorable.
I suspect some people were bothered by the R/Hr romance not happening if Hermione didn't go to the Yule Ball with Krum, but I actually like it. See, we told you the Yule Brawl (©Moey) was crucial! And jealousy is a perfectly respectable way to start a love story! And I love that if Hermione couldn't get Ron she wouldn't marry anyone. She knows her own heart even if Ron was idiotic enough to marry Padma. I also love that marrying someone who wasn't Hermione didn't make Ron happy at all---and it made Hermione bitter and miserable. They need each other.
I Can Forgive You For One Mistake, Harry
I wasn't as happy as a Harry/Ginny shipper. Not that I was unhappy---Harry and Ginny were very cute and obviously happy together. But their relationship didn't receive as much attention as Ron's and Hermione's, and I found Ginny a bit ... bland, like the classic "nice, sensible wife" many protagonists get in movies and TV shows. I suspect I will be more satisfied seeing it onstage, though, if the actress playing Ginny is peppery and charismatic, and especially with several scenes of the two of them in bed together, which can't help being satisfying to a shipper. :)
And I love that in every timeline where Harry is alive he is married to Ginny. He knows she is perfect for him.
I'm So Pleased So Many of You Were Able to Make My ... Extraordinary General Meeting
I was happy with Harry's characterization. I've always enjoyed seeing him suffer. Hmmm, that sounds kind of bad, but he's so adorable when he suffers and I've seen him do it so often. I was good with Albus too, even though he's kind of a brat, and what tiny little bit we got to see of James and Lily was fine as well.
I did expect Rose to have a bigger role in the play and I'm disappointed that she didn't. That was probably my biggest disappointment with the play, in fact. And it kind of seems like Hugo didn't even exist, which SUUUUUCKS but I do understand the issues with young child actors. But still... Hugo!
Scorpius was perfect. I wouldn't change one single thing about him. Draco ... hmmm. I was happy with Draco's story as a family man (which was heartbreaking), but I wasn't completely satisfied with his portrayal as a ... businessman? we're not told ... and his relationships with Harry and Hermione. I would have liked to have had his legal status and political position more clearly delineated. But all that may be taken care of in the performance as well.
I can't wait to see my beloved Minerva as Headmistress, but I'm nervous about how the actress portraying her will measure up. The same with my beloved Severus, of course. And my Hagrid. And my most-beloved, Dumbledore. Lots to be worried about! For some reason I don't have the same level of concern about Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny---maybe because their reviews were so positive.
Not sure how I feel about our villainess Delphina. She seems a bit under-defined to me in the text, but no doubt seeing her on stage will solve that problem too.
And that's all I've got, except that I'm really, really looking forward to October.
I still haven't seen it (October 10th, can't wait!!!) but I have just re-read it for the first time since 2016, so I will document my reactions.
Nineteen Years Later
I was a bit surprised, even dismayed, when I realized that I could barely remember the plot of the play I'd read just nine months earlier. I did enjoy the play, especially when we (the group of friends I had gathered for the release) did a table read. I remembered that we had laughed and laughed, so it must have had some very funny parts, and I remembered that some of you guys are surprisingly talented actors. I also remembered thinking that I couldn't even begin to imagine how it would be staged, and I still can't. Some of the effects (for instance, when Harry was gradually turning from Voldemort's body to his own near the end) seem literally impossible to carry off. I can't wait to see how they do it!
But now I have, for the first time, read Cursed Child right after reading the seven books of the Harry Potter series straight through, as if it was the eighth book. I suspect I will always read them that way from now on. Which means, I suppose, that I have accepted the "eighth book" as canon.
Or have I? I do have some reluctance to say that, despite the fact that Jo Rowling oversaw the script. The style of dialogue and humor is different enough that it doesn't FEEL like J.K. Rowling to me, and it doesn't feel exactly like the proper wizarding world either (though this may change when I've seen the play in person). On the other hand, it seems I've accepted the character portrayals as real. I certainly feel quite confident that Hermione really is the Minister for Magic, that Harry is the head of Magical Law Enforcement, that Albus is in Slytherin, Astoria is dead, and Scorpius is exactly the dear, sweet w00bie that he is in the play.
On the other other hand, when I re-read canon I don't really believe that the Trolley Witch is over 200 years old and can turn her hands into talons. That part just didn't take with me.
The World Has Gone Crazy, Have You Noticed?
The nature of the Trolley Witch isn't very important (to me) but there are some other things about the play besides style that bother me and make it hard for me to consider it canon. I'll list them from least important to most important:
- The dialogue at the beginning---As best I can tell without checking, the dialogue in the various "flashback" scenes, whether in Harry's dreams or in "real life" when they return to Godric's Hollow, is accurate. In other words, it matches the books. But the first two scenes repeat dialogue from the Book 7 Epilogue INACCURATELY and, yes, that bothers me. I don't mind so much when they slip in extra words that might have gone unreported, but when they change words that were reported, or change the person not giving Professor Longbottom love from James to Rose, it bothers me. Maybe that's silly, but canon is canon, dammit!
- The birth of Delphini---Unlike a lot of people, I am not bothered at all that having the villain leave an evil daughter is cliché or cheesy or whatever. I'm fine with that. But I'm having a hard time convincing myself that it's possible. I mean, sure, I can see Bellatrix wanting to bear Voldemort a child. She was besotted with him. But when did she do this? We see her in July of 1996, visiting Snape and apparently not pregnant. She says that she has no son and we can assume she has no daughter either since she has only been out of Azkaban since January 1996. We next see her in July 1997, sitting at a table in Malfoy Manor and again not mentioned to be pregnant. Then in March 1998 she kills Dobby and on May 2nd she is killed (yay!!!). So I suppose we can assume she conceived and delivered a child during the school year between July 1996 and July 1997 (while Voldemort was patiently waiting for Draco to murder Dumbledore, so I guess he'd have plenty of time for dalliance) or, less likely, that she was already pregnant when Charity Burbage was murdered in July 1997 and delivered a child before March 1998. But it's a bit hard for me to imagine Voldemort wanting either sex or a child enough to bother conceiving one and very hard to imagine him being able to father a human child in his distorted state, with red eyes, no nose, and only 1/8th of a soul.
- Cedric the Death Eater---This is the big one. Not only is it a huge insult to the memory of a "good and loyal friend" who worked hard and valued fair play, but I absolutely cannot see it. That a boy as nice as Cedric could be so warped by being humiliated in a competition at age 17 that by age 20 he'd be a Death Eater, fighting for Voldemort in the Battle of Hogwarts and killing Neville Longbottom just. does. not. compute. I mean, did he somehow decide that Muggleborns were responsible for turning his bubble into a balloon? Did Voldemort do a recruiting push among young Hufflepuff grads? Did Cho dump him for a Muggle? Cedric wasn't a Stan Shunpike, foolish and poor (and even Stan had to be Imperiused). Cedric was smart, kind, ethical, and blessed with loving parents, who were well-off enough to take him to the Quidditch World Cup. I just don't see how he could change so much so fast.
Nor do these problems stop me from greatly enjoying the play. It's funny. It's sweet. It's exciting. And the characters are delightful. Scorpius is my favorite, of course, but CC!Ron and CC!Hermione are like all my R/Hr dreams come true.
Ron and Hermione Have Gone Completely Skewwiff
It's ironic that Rowling's interview with Emma Watson wherein she expressed second thoughts about Ron and Hermione being happy together had made me, well, "worried" is too strong a term, let's say curious to slightly concerned about how the Granger-Weasley marriage might be portrayed in the Cursed Child play. As it turns out, I can't imagine being more delighted with it. Not only do they still have their old "zing" but their relationship was a major subject that the play examined, and we got to see them yearning for each other in two different alternate histories, we got to see young Albus masquerading as Ron in a lovey-dovey scene with Hermione, which was HILARIOUS, and we got to see quite a bit of them in the main timeline as well.
One of the strongest memories from the play which I definitely didn't forget was that R/Hr during the alternate history where Voldemort defeated Harry was even better than the R/Hr in regular-timeline canon. Reader, I swooned. They were hotter than a hot hot thing. Their adulterous mutual longing while Ron was married to Padma in the first alternate timeline was pretty damn hot too.
But, as much as I might be tempted to let Voldemort stay in charge if Ron and Hermione can be secretly in love with each other in an underground resistance bunker and Snape be still alive and fighting, the "real life" timeline is everything I wanted for my favorite pairing. Hermione is Minister for Magic at forty! Ron is running the joke shop and taking care of the kids! (Take that, all you "Ron will turn Hermione into a housewife churning out babies" sillies.) Ron is funny and he still makes Hermione "melt." Hermione has taken up candy-eating, but she won't let Ron eat fish fingers. They were very young and Ron was drunk at their wedding, so he wants to do it over again. They're adorable.
I suspect some people were bothered by the R/Hr romance not happening if Hermione didn't go to the Yule Ball with Krum, but I actually like it. See, we told you the Yule Brawl (©Moey) was crucial! And jealousy is a perfectly respectable way to start a love story! And I love that if Hermione couldn't get Ron she wouldn't marry anyone. She knows her own heart even if Ron was idiotic enough to marry Padma. I also love that marrying someone who wasn't Hermione didn't make Ron happy at all---and it made Hermione bitter and miserable. They need each other.
I Can Forgive You For One Mistake, Harry
I wasn't as happy as a Harry/Ginny shipper. Not that I was unhappy---Harry and Ginny were very cute and obviously happy together. But their relationship didn't receive as much attention as Ron's and Hermione's, and I found Ginny a bit ... bland, like the classic "nice, sensible wife" many protagonists get in movies and TV shows. I suspect I will be more satisfied seeing it onstage, though, if the actress playing Ginny is peppery and charismatic, and especially with several scenes of the two of them in bed together, which can't help being satisfying to a shipper. :)
And I love that in every timeline where Harry is alive he is married to Ginny. He knows she is perfect for him.
I'm So Pleased So Many of You Were Able to Make My ... Extraordinary General Meeting
I was happy with Harry's characterization. I've always enjoyed seeing him suffer. Hmmm, that sounds kind of bad, but he's so adorable when he suffers and I've seen him do it so often. I was good with Albus too, even though he's kind of a brat, and what tiny little bit we got to see of James and Lily was fine as well.
I did expect Rose to have a bigger role in the play and I'm disappointed that she didn't. That was probably my biggest disappointment with the play, in fact. And it kind of seems like Hugo didn't even exist, which SUUUUUCKS but I do understand the issues with young child actors. But still... Hugo!
Scorpius was perfect. I wouldn't change one single thing about him. Draco ... hmmm. I was happy with Draco's story as a family man (which was heartbreaking), but I wasn't completely satisfied with his portrayal as a ... businessman? we're not told ... and his relationships with Harry and Hermione. I would have liked to have had his legal status and political position more clearly delineated. But all that may be taken care of in the performance as well.
I can't wait to see my beloved Minerva as Headmistress, but I'm nervous about how the actress portraying her will measure up. The same with my beloved Severus, of course. And my Hagrid. And my most-beloved, Dumbledore. Lots to be worried about! For some reason I don't have the same level of concern about Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny---maybe because their reviews were so positive.
Not sure how I feel about our villainess Delphina. She seems a bit under-defined to me in the text, but no doubt seeing her on stage will solve that problem too.
And that's all I've got, except that I'm really, really looking forward to October.